"Good for Homes, but No Good Homes"

Much of Middlefield sprawls out from Woodside Road. Office parks, long strip malls, and construction yards straddle Woodside. Ugly streets shouldered by non-descript warehouse walls and metallic rolling doors greet the passerby, with little to distinguish one building from another except for the occasional business placard.

This is the kind of place that you go if you want to get patio furniture or go the drugstore. All those kinds of hum drum home owner necessities can be purchased in this kind of an area. You have an Orchard Supply store, a CVS Pharmacy and an Office Max. You also have a Finnish-American Sauna supplier, a doggie daycare and a concrete and landscaping service.

This is all useful stuff to have nearby, but not very attractive in appearance.

As far as the residential section of Middlefield, it is mostly made up of semi-dilapidated box style apartment complexes, which often feature concrete front yards and dark dingy stairwells that disappear back into long halls. Windows have a ramshackle appearance, and seem ready to fall out of their casements.

Put simply, this is a good place to buy things for your home, but not a good place to have your home.

"Unkempt, gritty, lower middle-class area"

Middlefield is an unpolished, lower middle-class community situated within the many anonymous Redwood City neighborhoods. The district itself spans about 0.7 square miles, most of which is saturated with unpleasant suburban aesthetics and gritty, unappealing residences. According to the 2010 US Census, the total population is approaching 7,000, which makes it drastically overcrowded. Demographically speaking, the area is largely hispanic (over 75%), with a small white minority.

Although convenient to downtown Redwood City, Middlefield doesn’t have much else to offer. Most homes are old and built before the 1980’s. They are small, boxy, unglamorous and one-story in size. For the most part, they sit on small, squarish properties and are tightly packed along suburban streets. And with crime being of relative concern, chain-linked or raggedy, wood-paneled fencing enclose small, unkempt properties. For numbers sake, houses usually come with a price tag of around $600,000, well below the city’s average. Others live in some sort of shared housing unit, which tend to be priced around $350,000. For renters, there are a couple gritty, two-story apartment homes with garage space under the second floor. They’re typically priced around $1,000/month.

Middlefield’s residential area is very underwhelming. It’s commercial quarters are no different. For the most part, the district’s small shopping center is situated close to the US Route 101 onramp, while a large industrial zone is East of Woodside Drive. In both cases, you can find a mix of fast food chains, thrift stores and ugly, but convenient shopping options. Its one big store is Costco, which sits along Middlefield Road. As for the industrial zone, its saturated with motorcycle shops, woodworking depots, auto body shops and anonymous two-story buildings/businesses.

"Nice Downtown Area"

There is something really nice about the main Silicon Valley towns - Palo Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park, in that they each have a really cute, pedestrian downtown area. Apparently, Redwood City is no different. Middlefield Road makes up the center of town, which not only has shops, but apparently is home to a small theater district!

Now, I can't speak to the quality of live theater in Redwood City, but it certainly is a surprise in such an industrial town. On the downside, there is a section that runs one way only and slightly screws up traffic patterns.

Outside of Redwood Village, Middlefield Road is usually a safe bypass to get you places in Silicon Valley without having to fight too much traffic. It is residential, but still major enough that you don't have to stop every two seconds, and it runs south to Mountain View, so it is (usually) a safe driving bet.